Editorial Alliance · 2020
There were many reasons to approach Woody Allen's autobiography. The first was, of course, What are we talking about Woody Allen?, Of course, one of the most influential directors of American cinema of the last 50 years! Already in his beginnings as a comedian, Allen revolutionized the world of calling stand up comedy to push it towards new limits with texts that mixed cultural references (from philosophy to psychoanalysis, passing through the plastic arts or literature) with personal experiences, something that today can be considered very common, but what, back in the sixties of the last century, It was quite a novelty if we take into account that the majority of comedians of the time dedicated themselves to telling a series of more or less funny jokes with no other intention than to entertain.. Allen also had fun, but he did it from an acidic and subtle vision of life, a mixture of the loquacity and absurdity of Groucho Marx, one of its great references, and certain “intellectual” themes more in line with a society that was already pointing towards contemporary individualism. Allen talked about religion, of death, de Freud, de Dostoyevski, and foregrounded a self that today is omnipresent in almost any form of narrative expression., much more in the field of comedy.
Already as a film director, and after his first proposals within the gag comedy, some more or less clever, others really brilliant even by today's standards (Who would produce a movie like that now? The last night of Boris Grushenko? – Love and Death, in the original-), Allen, emulating in his own way masters like Bergman or Fellini, would set the standards for much of the film and television production of the following decades. Would series like Seinfeld o, More recently, Girls, or the cinema of so many directors, as Noah Baumbach, (for those who subscribe, a minor imitator) no movies like Manhattan, Anne Hall o Hannah and her sisters? Put a group of urbanites, mix a little comedy with some tragic elements, New York City in the background and some existential conflicts (that me in trouble that we were talking about), and we already have the formula. Even in cultures as far away as ours, Allen has had a huge influence (David Trueba, Cesc Gay…).
And if, It is true that Woody Allen has spoken many times about his cinema, hence, although in this book he reviews his entire filmography, being more wordy when it comes to his films until the nineties than the rest, This part may be a bit short on details.. Let's think that Allen had already expanded on these issues in the essential interview book that he produced for years with the journalist Eric Lax, Conversations with Woody Allen. Now, It affects some of the ideas that I had already presented. But maybe this is not the most relevant thing. What is relevant is the way in which he tells those same things..
Here we come across another reason why one was interested in reading this book.. In the case of cinema, It is not so common that, apart from his documentary curiosity, we are faced with an autobiographical text whose quality surpasses the thin content, that is to say, the succession of moments that have crowned a life. And it is that, as he himself acknowledges, Woody Allen it, first of all, writer. and it shows. About nothing It is a book that, simply, devoured from the first page to the last. An enjoyable read like few others. Enjoyable and, at the same time, sharp and intelligent, even less frequent thing. We are facing the best Woody Allen. If you thought that, with his latest works for the screen, had lost part of his spark for humor or his fine look at the complexities of human existence, here he looks like in his best moments. reading this book, going through his childhood anecdotes, youth and, later, his complicated adult life, We feel like we are reviewing the frames of his best films again., those already mentioned or other titles such as The Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio days, Crimes and misdemeanors, Interiors, September, another woman o Zelig (Isn't life like a fake documentary?, the search for a real half self, half fiction, locked in a struggle between how others see us and how we see ourselves?). And here we find the first surprise. It is common in interviews for Allen to reject any attempt to align him with his own characters.. Y, up to a point, this is strictly true (We will return to this issue shortly., well, we could say, which is the cornerstone of this book). But, told now by himself, we cannot help but see how much his life has served, at least, raw material for a good part of his best stories. The fictional Allen is not the real Allen, of course, but your life is there, at the base, and this book confirms it.
But if we say that with the reading of About nothing we go through that same kinetic experience that his best works represent, This is so both in the background, as for the shape. Deep down because, against all odds, Allen continues fully as an analyst of what we could call the human experience, what is, after all, what all his cinema is about. Of their joys and happy encounters, of his many and twisted disagreements or misfortunes. At more than eighty years old, Allen continues to feel awe and a curiosity or clinical eye to analyze the many foolish things we are capable of doing. nonsense that, as we will see, will bring sometimes deeply painful consequences. We are faced with a rational man facing the absurdity and irrational nature of contemporary human beings., of his fortunate experiences, from the delusions of his broken heart, of our many inconsistencies. And of course, like a good loser he is, In this field, Allen has enjoyed as many successes as he has had resounding failures.. It is those two faces that coexist here, pristine, crudely exposed, Well, Allen has come to be honest in a stark way, think what everyone thinks about him. And aren't all his characters like that?, light and darkness, humor and drama, certainties and deep insecurities, individuals subjected to the cruel or happy swings of desire and chance?
We were talking about the background, but in the form we find ourselves before the most inspired Allen that we have been able to read or listen to in recent decades. Allen takes the reader by the hand and literally takes him wherever he wants.. As in his best scripts, can immerse us in the deepest of reflections to, when you least expect it, drop a joke that robs that moment of all its false gravity. That coup de effect, well rehearsed for decades, shines here in all its effectiveness. Life is that serious and deep and, at once, ridiculous and light that happens to us every day, tells us in each paragraph. And of course, disarms you. A couple of examples. At a given moment, Allen gives an account of his friendship with Jena Doumanian, producer of many of his films. Doumanian became, more than a friend, a confidant. “There were no secrets between us, "We had a more intimate relationship than if we were relatives.", writes Allen, while one understands and enters into that close relationship that, for our misfortune, It happens few times in life. “This extreme and pleasurable intimacy lasted for several decades… until I demanded it.”. With just one turn of the verb, Allen confronts us, at once, satirical and gloomy, to the gray twists and turns of human relationships. It makes us laugh and, at the same time, leaves a deep mark on our hearts by making us participate in one of the most difficult episodes of his professional and sentimental biography.. The same thing happens in this other passage in which, after exposing his shady relationship with Mia Farrow, writes: “I don't believe in an afterlife and I don't really see what importance it can have if people remember me as a filmmaker or as a pedophile or if they don't remember me at all.. The only thing I ask is that they scatter my ashes near a pharmacy.”. There will be those who may find this just an ingenious frivolity.. It's not at all. In that same sense, the last line of the book is just wonderful. No, we will not review it, They will have to reach it on their own.. And maybe, After reading this paragraph, you may be tempted to pick up the book and take a look at that last sentence.. It's your decision, although I don't advise it. If you have not done the entire itinerary, it's not the same.
Another example that we are not facing a mere more or less witty combination of letters, we find it when it gets a little more serious. This is the case of the passages in which he talks about his relationship with the city of New York and the landscape that he saw through the window of his Manhattan apartment.. “Snowstorms and blizzards were different experiences, but equally impressive. Waking up every winter morning and seeing every inch of Central Park covered in snow; and the city, silent and empty (…) The same excitement took place in April, when one could see how the trees were sprouting. At first just, the next day, some more. Then, a few days later, bum, green everywhere, Spring has arrived in Manhattan, and in Central Park you see how buds and petals open and unfold and the air smells of nostalgia and you feel like killing yourself. Because? Because it's so beautiful you can't stand it; The pineal gland secretes Juice of Indescribable Melancholy and you don't know where to put all those feelings that stampede inside you, and God forbid that at that moment your love life is not going very well. “Bring the revolver”. Pure cinema.
And so, We come to the moment to address the big topic. And although one a priori does not have the slightest interest in wasting too much time on the Allen-Farrow case, The truth is that this takes up a good portion of the text, something that forces us to treat it. For that and because, somehow, becomes the capital event on which it revolves and which seems to finally give meaning to this text. Or more precisely, We will talk about his relationship with one of Farrow's adopted daughters, Son-Yi.
Up to this point in the chronicle we were trying to list some of the reasons why it could be interesting to approach this autobiography.. Many of these reasons fall within the realm of what is expected.. Others correspond to the space of the unpredictable. Because it is a fun (and hard) surprise discover, we anticipated above, to what extent Allen undresses throughout these pages. He does it, of course, in the field of art, openly positioning himself as an autodidact of varied tastes, but unorthodox. Allen prefers Chaplin to Buster Keaton (although he doesn't like it The great dictator o Mr Verdoux), which in certain circles can be blasphemy. You have never seen a performance of Hamlet, has not read Ulises by Joyce, in The Quijote, in Lolita, in 1984, is a Virginia Woolf, neither to Brontë nor to Dickens and yes the only novel that Joseph Goebbels wrote. He likes Hitchcock a lot, but not Vertigo, and deplores classics like With skirts and crazy, My girl's beast o How beautiful it is to live! But Allen is only compelled to speak and say what he thinks, not what others expect me to say or think.
But if this is a more or less mischievous curiosity, It is on a personal level that Allen really exposes himself.. Piecemeal. The first thing that should be said is that, in every love relationship there is, at least, two sides involved. When the time comes for a breakup or conflict, Both parties have their own interest in bringing the ember of reason to their sardine.. This is something Allen knows very well.. It is for this reason that he wants to present the facts from a cold and objective point of view.. Let's first assume that this is practically impossible or very difficult for anyone.. Among the many reasons that he presents in his defense to exonerate himself before the public trial on the possible matter of pedophilia that marked much of his life, Allen makes a psychological portrait of Mia Farrow that, demanding rigor, although it seems coherent (among other things, by the own account of some of the witnesses who testified at the time in his favor and two of his children, Soon Yi y Moses), we can leave the side of the impenetrable. Do we know Mia Farrow? No. But other arguments are less rebuttable., such as the fact that he did not even go to trial after two rigorous investigations or that he underwent a lie detector test, passing the test (something that Farrow seems to have objected to). If we still uphold the presumption of innocence as the basis of our judicial systems, there are not many doubts. Allen submitted to the scrutiny of justice and passed it unscathed. It would be more complicated to defend a Polanski, For example, who recognized the facts and in favor of which, If we assume this information from the book to be true, Mia Farrow herself testified at the time.
None of this interests me that much.. This information may be relevant to those who did not know some of these facts.. It's not my case. What interests me is discovering to what extent Allen is not hiding anything. And here we come across the passages in which he narrates his relationship with Soon-Yi. in them, the octogenarian director could have created, knowing that he is being watched by that merciless eye of public opinion, a story more or less favorable to his defense, sweetening the facts or describing them so that certain scenes would pass more discreetly through our imagination. It's not like that. On the contrary, Allen exposes their relationship knowing the negative effect it can have on the most intransigent reader.. And not being the case, when you read it, You feel a slight pang in your prejudices when faced with the relationship between a man in his late fifties and a young woman in her early twenties who had just graduated from university.. Then, you wonder, why exactly do I judge him? Is a woman over twenty a girl who doesn't know what she wants and desires?? Have we become so puritans? in memory, some scenes of Husbands and wives, one of his brightest films. But that's not the most relevant thing either..
What is relevant is that, from that moment, there is something that has changed. During much of the reading of this book, as he has done in so many interviews, Allen tries to show himself, not like the great artist that everyone considers, but like a normal person, with remarkable talent, it's true, but nothing as “extraordinary” as having invented the cure for cancer or a new source of energy that frees us from dependence on oil.. Emulating the great John Ford, Allen could say: “I only do comedies”. And in a way, you are right. It's not false modesty, It is the honest measure of things in a world deranged by fame and notoriety.. However, one never quite believed him, among other things because, by not knowing him intimately, It was very difficult to separate the real man from the public figure. We have a lot of information about the second., of the first, although we believe otherwise, none. Who really are Woody Allen, Mia Farrow o Soon-Yi? Well I don't know. If I think about it, I don't even know my own neighbors.
However, after these passages in which Allen narrates his relationship with his now still wife, after testing our tolerance, it seems that something has fallen. And that's where we meet a real man, another Woody Allen different from the usual Woody Allen, that Woody Allen that we had built in our imagination. A man like any other, with its virtues and its weaknesses. Fragile in his humanity, bewildered and lucid, almost old, also. Allen meets, well, what was promised to a point that is heartbreaking. as if telling us, "since you don't believe me, I'm going to force you to go through this ordeal to see if, So, “It gets into your hard core.” and boom. In one fell swoop, the mythical image disappears, almost cinematic, and the human face appears. Another Allen that we will now have to learn to value, know and appreciate again. From the beginning.
Like in another of his movies, Allen undergoes a deconstruction process so brutal that, when it ends, Not even the scratches remain, What we have in front of us is pure marrow. And that's why this book is great.. Because it forces us to question ourselves in a starkly rigorous way. About nothing es, above all, the testimony of a man against a society that, stimulated by the media and the so-called society of the spectacle, has renounced all rationality and, therefore, to the truth. This is the battle that Allen faces in his text. A battle fought on two fronts, that of his public figure and in his private life. A battle that you know in advance that you are going to lose. But it doesn't matter. GERARDO LEON
